


The Shining Knight and the Dark Squire

by Ulthar



Category: DCU (Comics), Demon Knights, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Appalachian Balladry, Canon Trans Character, Coming of Age, Gen, I really like writing about tiny children okay, Minor Character Death, Morality, This is my extremely elaborate headcanon, questing!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1940934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ulthar/pseuds/Ulthar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Todd died.  He came back.  And he spent a few years tracking down the martial arts masters of the world, training with them, and then killing them, usually, because the world was better off without them.  This is the story of one such encounter.</p><p>Disclaimer: I started writing this before reading Red Hood and the Outlaws, so it kind of conflicts with that canon.  If I can, I'll try to reconcile the two, but it's more likely that this'll end up as a sort of alternate mentoring experience to the weirdness with the All-Caste, which is entertaining, but...weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Way of the World

Jason Todd waited for his fresh bruises to heal, and for the other students of the karate-ka to start searching elsewhere for revenge.  Then he collected the new passport arranged by his benefactor and paid cash for a ticket from Okinawa to Tokyo, and Tokyo to Metropolis.  There he laid low for a few days, covering his tracks, and learning a new kind of fear when the red-and-blue blur passed overhead.  He was, after all, a criminal now.  To be fair, he had been a criminal for most of his life, in one way or another, but now if he slipped in any way he would end up wanted for much more than petty theft, assault, and a few victimless crimes.  From Metropolis he got a flight to Heathrow, then to Cardiff.  From Cardiff, he took a train, then walked, following a legend, a rumor, and the cryptic promise of a tourism brochure.

The Welsh village of Llanwyn was said by its tourism commission to be the resting place of both Yvain and his lion, and the site of several exciting events of medieval legend.  The location of the actual tomb, of course, was unknown, but there were plenty of people around willing to wave knowledgeably at a couple of likely caves for the price of a few pounds.  Jason arrived in the evening and walked a cobbled street to the overly picturesque town square, where a statue of the fabled Sir Yvain and his faithful companion stood proudly over a row of mismatched souvenir shops and an informational plaque.  He turned left and followed the point of the knight’s bronze sword down a twisting alleyway to the door of an old but sturdy building under a sign depicting a lion and a dragon circling each other as if in combat.  “The Lion and Dragon: Room and Board” it read, in peeling, calligraphic letters.  Jason pushed the door open, and a bell rang softly.

“Just one moment!” a woman’s voice called from inside.  Jason stepped into the combined lobby and lounge, picking his way between a pair of spindly tables to where a squashy sofa stood next to the little check-in desk.  He sank into the cushions, resting his hands on his knees and trying to look like he hadn’t recently become slightly too big for the room.  He looked around, feeling out-of-place amid the mix of country coziness and Arthurian kitsch.  One wall bore a couple of moderately decent paintings, one depicting a farmhouse and a flock of sheep and the other a pair of muddy children picking wildflowers.  Across from it hung two crossed swords and a painted shield.  He had just enough time to ascertain that the swords were made of aluminum before a small woman in her early sixties bustled up to the desk, looking down to beam at him while she opened a large book and fished for a pen in a desk drawer.

“Now, dear, do we have a reservation?”  She had found a pen, and was scanning the list of names scrawled in loopy cursive in the guest register.

“No, sorry.  Will that be a problem?”  Jason stood after a moment’s effort, struggling slightly to extricate himself from the pillows.

“No, no, of course not.  Plenty of room!”  She was still smiling, and chattered on in her lilting country accent.  “Now we are a big lad, aren’t we?  The corner room won’t do, I fear, not nearly enough room.  Tell you what, dear, I’ll book you for a double bed, no extra charge.”

Automatically, Jason started to say that really wasn’t necessary, but she dismissed his protests with a wave of her hand and a “No trouble, no trouble at all.” 

“Now,” she said again, starting to make a new entry in her guest book, “Do we have a name?”

“Jason To—” he cut himself off mid-surname.  _Idiot_ , he thought.  _Fugitive, remember?  Murderer.  And dead, anyway._   He hadn’t used his real name since leaving his benefactor.  His most recent passport said his name was Jacob Levitt, and the two driver’s licenses in his pocket were for Evan Thrace and Caleb Richards.  “—Tompkins,” he corrected.  It was too close for comfort, but better than nothing.  As she scrawled what must have been meant to be “Jason Tompkins” into the register, he figured he ought to be safe.  There probably wasn’t another living soul in the world who could read that handwriting.

“And how long will you be staying?” she continued, pen poised over the next column.

“That kind of depends,” Jason admitted.  “Put me down for a week; I’ll pay even if I end up leaving early.”

The woman marked what was probably a “7” in the book, then extended a hand.  “Well, Jason Tompkins, welcome to The Lion and Dragon.  My name is Gwen.  Like the queen,” she said, suddenly serious, but then she beamed again.  “Only not quite!  Gwendolyn Harper.”  Jason reached out and took the woman’s hand, almost enveloping it, but instead of shaking his, she gave it a warm squeeze with both of hers.

“If you’ll come along upstairs, I’ll show you your room and you can drop off your luggage,” she continued, leading the way.  “I can have dinner ready in an hour, if you’ll be eating here tonight?  And that’ll leave you time to take a nice walk; see the village, if you like.  Might even be able to make it to the lake and back, if you hurry.  It is lovely, this time of year.”

Jason wondered what Gwendolyn Harper would think if she knew his “luggage,” the battered duffle bag slung across his shoulder, contained, in addition to a couple of tee shirts, a spare pair of jeans, and a (now badly wrinkled) suit he had been instructed to carry just in case, also hid two pistols, a set of sharpened sai, some old iron nunchucks, one vicious-looking knife, four passports, and over seven thousand dollars’ worth of various currencies, but all he said as he dropped the bag at the foot of the bed was “Yeah, I will.  And dinner would be great.”

The village was, as it had first appeared, very much a tourist town.  The streets were quiet and almost devoid of traffic.  He passed a family of four, one of the daughters wearing a conical princess hat with a glittery veil, and the other clutching a decorative dagger with a red glass pommel.  The latter was obviously unable to keep her eyes off her pointy metal prize.  The mother and father greeted Jason cheerfully as they walked, and princess-sister tugged on dagger-sister’s hair to keep her from walking into the road.  Jason nodded to them and continued down the street, passing a trendy clothing store, a couple of shops selling miscellaneous souvenirs, and “Round Table Armory,” which the family had obviously just visited.  He considered going in and asking if they carried any practical weapons, but decided he ought to find the person he had come looking for before trying to buy a sword.

He didn’t know how he would find that person, if he even was here, so he wandered aimlessly along the twisting streets, half looking for leads and half taking time to pretend he was an ordinary kid on vacation, that he had gotten the week of from school, maybe even that he had left his parents back at the inn and wandered off to get a rare taste of freedom.  He could relax for one night, at least, and start looking in earnest tomorrow.  He pretended part of his brain wasn’t trained to search every storefront he passed for lapses in security that would make for easy burglary (there were many), and another part wasn’t trained to check every person he passed for signs of criminal intent (there were none).

He had been walking for less than twenty minutes when he stopped, staring blankly at the window that appeared before him.  _It can’t be this_ , he thought.  _It can’t be this easy_.  Vinyl letters on the glass spelled out “Sir Justin of Camelot: Historical Reenactment and Authentic Medieval Combat Training.”  The establishment looked less obviously fantastical than the rest of the town, to be fair.  Was the legendary Shining Knight hiding here in plain sight?  _If it is true_ , Jason remembered, _he won’t be the first_.  He thought of Zatanna, who could make a trick look like real magic, and real magic look like a trick, and he thought of Buddy Baker, the superhero who played one on TV.

The lights were off inside, and the window listed hours of operation.  The studio had closed for the night, but would be open tomorrow morning.  He tried the door, and knocked, just to make sure.  It was locked, and there was no answer.  Jason squatted down and squinted at the locking mechanism.  He could break in.  He could pick the lock and be inside in seconds.  He could even lock the door on his way out; no one would need to know.  It was what _he_ would do, if _he_ needed answers.  But Jason was not _him_ , and that settled it.  Besides, one does not break into the studio of what may be the last living knight of Camelot, especially if one wants said knight to be helpful.

So Jason decided to pretend, for a little while longer.  Instead of picking the lock, he stood and put his face up to the window, shading the glass with his hands so he could see inside.  The studio looked like a fairly typical martial arts dojo, the floor padded and one wall set with mirrors.  One wall, however, was lined with weapon racks, and the third was hung with tapestries.  The weapons were mainly swords of different types and sizes, but there were a couple of axes as well, and several pikes propped up in the corner.  It was too dim to make out much from the tapestries, but he recognized one as that penned unicorn with the comically large horn.  _They’re reproductions, then,_ he thought.  _But all that says about the man who hung them is that he isn’t an art thief or a billionaire._

Jason didn’t feel terribly enlightened as he left the studio and started walking back towards The Lion and Dragon, but this was a better start than he had anticipated.  Tonight, he would be patient.  He was in no hurry, and he had nothing to fear from a rural village in Wales.  Tomorrow, he would be civil, at least at first.

 _Patient_ , he reminded himself as he climbed the crooked steps back to the door of the Lion and Dragon.  _Normal_ , he even thought, though he didn’t even know what he meant by that anymore.  The sort of person who could walk into a kitschy inn and smile easily at the landlady as she led him to the dining room, where a slightly undersized table was set for six, and the smell of a roast was making him faint with hunger.

“Thought we could all eat together,” she chirped, “Seeing how young Jason’s all alone.  That alright with everyone?”  The family of four he had seen earlier were already seated there, and when they voiced no protest, Ms. Harper beamed and pulled out a chair for him before taking her own place and starting to carve the roast.

Dinner was one of those slightly strained, but still pleasant affairs, where nobody knows anybody but is still determined to be friendly.  The parents asked him the general questions one asks a young man travelling alone: where he was from, whether he was in school, what his parents did, what he intended to do with his life.  He replied with easy lies, sinking into the persona of an American college student doing a vague study-abroad program in medieval history.  The little girls were wary of the big guy with the weird hair at first, but they relaxed a little over the course of the meal.  The older one was still wearing her princess hat, and the younger was keeping her dagger next to her plate.

The girls bolted from the dining room as soon as they were permitted.  When the landlady had finally stopped plying Jason with seconds, he went back into the lobby to find the girls playing there, the littler one lunging wildly and swinging her weapon, her sister dodging gracefully and making magical hand gestures and _fwoosh_ -ing sounds at her sparring partner.  Jason’s grinned when they saw them, immersed in their fantasy as only children can be.  He stopped smiling abruptly as dagger-girl took a well-placed fireball to the chest and collapsed to the floor, writhing in pretend agony.  Even as she stood up, laughing again, poised to continue the fight, he collapsed, shaking into the ugly floral couch.

 _Fire_.  The girl couldn’t feel it, even as she writhed on the old wood floor.  He could, with the press of force before the heat, throwing him back, away from both timer and his bound-and-gagged mother, as if trying to save him, but condemn her.

Time had slowed, and he had watched her die—not just burn, she had been torn to pieces, the bomb had been so close.  As the shock wave claimed her, and crept toward him, fire cleansing in its wake—slowly, so slowly, too slowly to save him from the sight of human blood and bone splattered on the wall, illuminating it for an infinite second in ghoulish light—he had felt immortal, almost hoping this could last forever, a staring contest with death itself.  But then the fire came, and pain came with it, and he realized with brutal clarity that this is what makes the immortal beg for death, and he closed his eyes on the burning light and opened them to darkness, cold, suffocating—

“Um,” a small voice pierced the dark as if from a thousand miles away, “You okay?”  Jason opened his eyes and touched his face with a shaking hand.  He was sweating, and his breath coming in gasps.  He saw the dagger-girl, pretty knife now hanging forgotten in her hand.  She was looking at him with confusion, and actual concern.  He wanted to tell her.  Tell her he was everything but okay, that he was lost and terrified and _dead_ —he didn’t have the heart.  It wasn’t that she was too young; when he had been her age, he had seen three men gunned down outside his bedroom window, and their bodies had lain in the street for a day and a half before anyone bothered to have them moved.  This just wasn’t her world, it couldn’t be; when she saw Wonder Woman and the Justice League on TV she would only see bright costumes and reassuring smiles, not the blood on their hands, the lives they had taken, the lives they had failed to save—

It  _was_ her world, though, and that was the worst of it.  There was only one world, no matter how it seemed, here, in this hopelessly idyllic country town, where the last crime wave had probably worn chainmail and come in longboats.  One world, and not a safe world, never a safe world for bright-eyed girls, whether they were princesses or knights—he wanted to tell her that, grab her and  _make_ her understand.  He did the next best thing.

“Come here,” he said, waving her closer.  “That’s no way to hold a knife.”


	2. Justin

Jason didn’t see the girls in the morning, but he had a private theory that Ms. Harper gave him their portions when she laid out eggs and toast with marmalade.  She chatted with him about the weather, and about how he was up earlier than she would expect for someone his age, and asked what he would be up to today.

“There’s someone in town I want to meet—about that research I mentioned.  I want to find him before he gets too busy.  Maybe you’ve met him?  Justin?  The knight?”

He had expected the woman to laugh, and she did, but it was with a thoughtful, faraway look in her eyes.  “Oh, yes,” she murmured, almost to herself.  “Knight of Camelot.  There was a day when I would never have believed it, but stranger things have happened.”  Jason didn’t know what she was thinking about, but he could guess.  _One world_ , he remembered.

“Well,” she continued, coming back to reality, “Justin keeps to himself, mostly, except when people go to that studio of his.  Mostly tourists; the locals don’t have time for that sort of thing.  Or the money.”  She laughed.  “But they say he’s charming, gallant, does impressive things with a sword.  Everything you would expect from a knight.  And can spin a tale like Chretien de Troyes, if you ask.”  She smiled indulgently, adding, “Kids go in there, and they come out checking under every stone for the Holy Grail.  Anyway, if you’re looking for history, he’s definitely a good start.”

Jason thanked her for breakfast and left the inn, retracing his steps back through the twisted streets.  It was early morning and, in good Welsh fashion, everything was grey and choked with mist.  The glass-fronted building advertising combat training was lit up now, showing a room that looked like half dojo and half Medieval Times.  A bell rang, softly, as he opened the door and padded inside, another surreal addition to the perplexing mix of mythical and mundane.  He could see the tapestries better now, and they were definitely fakes, but good fakes, woven in heavy thread.  Of the weapons, only a few looked like live steel; the rest were blunted or made of sturdy wood.  He picked up a spear from the corner and hefted it, making a few practice jabs at the air.  While in Japan, he had trained with masters of bo staff and naginata, and the spear felt both strange and familiar in his hands.  He fumbled to put it down when he heard footsteps and saw one of the tapestries move, and he looked up just in time to glimpse a doorway behind the cloth unicorn, as a man entered the room.

He looked every inch a knight, tall and handsome, wearing a white surcoat over golden chainmail.  He smiled and inclined his head with a thoroughly anachronistic sort of dignity.  “Welcome, stranger,” he said, nodding toward the polearm Jason had hastily dropped.  “Have you come to be trained in the art of the spear?”

“I’ve come for training in everything you know,” Jason replied warily, “Assuming you are who you say you are.”  He shifted half-consciously into a more combat-ready stance as Justin approached.  This kitschy town was a far cry from the Hungarian village where an old man had set two massive dogs on him before agreeing to teach Jason what he knew about knife throwing, but Jason would be ready for anything.

“If I am who I say I am?  Do you doubt, then, that I am the last of the court of King Arthur, knight of the Grail, and the greatest swordsman of this age?”  From the tone of his voice, Justin could sense Jason’s intention.  He had a combat instinct, then, whoever he was.  Jason’s eyes flashed to the other man’s hand, now resting lightly on the sword hilt at his side.

“I might,” Jason sneered, channeling the mocking contempt Robin had used time and again to provoke a reckless attack.  “But you could prove it,” he added, backing up warily and grasping the first weapon his hand found.

“I could indeed!”  Justin had a longsword in his hand faster than Jason could blink, and he barely managed to get his own weapon up to meet it in time—an axe.  He blocked clumsily, the asymmetric balance of the weapon unfamiliar in his hands.  He blocked again, and again, three fast blows, gauging his opponent’s strength against his own.  He was far better with a sword than Jason was with an axe, that went without saying, and he was armored.  But he was also entirely overconfident, attacking without guard, and his head was unarmored, his legs only covered by cloth and leather.  Jason took his chance.

He threw the axe aside and grabbed his attacker’s wrist.  A dodge, a kick to the knee, and a twist of the arm, and Justin was down, pinned and gasping.

“Too easy,” Jason growled, his knee digging into the other man’s back.  He shifted his weight a little, and the other man yelped, all semblance of chivalric bravado gone.

“Who are you?” he gasped.  “What do you want?”

“I wanted a knight,” Jason growled again, in a voice that reminded him too much of _him_ , but that was because _he_ was good at this sort of thing.  “ _The_ knight.  The Shining Knight.  You’re not him.  You’re an insult to him.”  Jason didn’t know if that was true; he wasn’t entirely sure if the legendary Shining Knight even existed, but it did seem to get some sort of rise out of the pinned warrior.

“No—ow!—you don’t understand.  Please, you know I can’t hurt you, let me up.  I—I had his blessing!”

That was interesting.  Jason loosened his hold, and Justin wriggled out of his grip, gasping.  “Explain,” he said, getting to his feet.

The not-knight rolled over and sat there for a bit, massaging his shoulder and wincing.  Jason waited.

“Near twenty years ago, I met the one who calls himself Shining Knight.  I was just making my start in the business—stage combat, reenactment.  I was working a Renaissance fair outside of Cardiff, he was passing through.  Don’t know what sort of interest he has in those things; I think they make him nostalgic, or the just make him laugh.  Anyway, we got along, and he stuck around.  I only half-believed who he was, for weeks, but I listened to him.  He told stories—incredible stories, like you wouldn’t believe.  Like I didn’t believe.  Showed me a few new tricks with a blade, though, and I believed those.  It was his idea that I start fighting under his name—or, close to it.  I thought at first that he wanted someone to carry on his legacy, but I don’t know anymore.  Could be he just wanted a decoy.  Hard to vanish, when you look like he does.  Harder still, with a horse like his horse.”  He laughed weakly, and shook his head.  “Believed everything when I saw that bloody horse.  Craziest thing I ever saw.  Bloody fucking flying horse.”

He kept laughing for a moment, a bit hysterically, and Jason was worried he might start hyperventilating when he finally got ahold of himself.  Getting to his knees, he looked Jason straight in the eyes, suddenly dead serious.  “If you’ve found me, it means you’ve been looking in exactly the wrong places.  Ystin isn’t what you’d expect.  You’ll be looking right at him and not know what you’ve found.  But that horse—you can find the horse.  Just please, leave me alone.  I don’t mean any harm.”

Jason considered.  He should kill him, Justin the decoy knight, to cover his tracks.  But the innocent fool reminded him of someone.  The dagger-girl.  Maybe there were two worlds, after all.  He was part of her world, not Jason’s, naïve idealists with their heads full of fairy tales.  Maybe they would get pulled into his world eventually, by evil or greed or as the accidental casualties of a goddamn alien invasion, but that didn’t mean they should.  There were heroes to protect them from his world.  And when heroes failed, there would be Jason.

He nodded, and extended a hand.  The other man grabbed it and pulled himself up.  Then Jason turned and left, back into the alleys, still heavy with mist.

Ms. Harper was still there when he got back to the inn, but she didn’t greet him as cheerily as before, as if she knew something wasn’t quite right.

“I’ll be checking out today,” he said, fumbling to pull cash out of his pocket to pay for his stay.  In response to her questioning look, he said, “Family emergency.”  That’s something normal people said, and normal people didn’t question.  She refused to let him pay for the full week, but when he got up to his room to collect his things he left a substantial tip on the bedside table.

When he came back down, she was wrapping up a packet of sandwiches.  She pressed them into his hands without giving him time to protest.  She looked up at him, a sort of concern in her eyes that made him wonder if she guessed more than she let on.  She squeezed his hands again and whispered, “You be careful, dear.”

He left Wales more shaken than he had left Okinawa.


	3. Ystin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which writing suddenly becomes very awkward, because the random background point of view character doesn't know anybody's name.

Roughly a dozen eyes glanced up as the door creaked open, admitting a chill November wind and a small figure in a long and somewhat threadbare coat.  They looked down again as the door closed and the man made his way up to the battered wooden bar.  The bartender, a tired-looking man of about thirty, straightened up as he approached.

“Get you something?”

“Mug of ale, if you would be so kind.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow.  “Uh…what sort?”

The newcomer sighed and slumped onto a stool.  “I never know anymore.  Whatever is good here.”

The bartender started to reach for a clean glass, then stopped and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.  “You even old enough to be drinking?”

This made the stranger laugh, high, boyish, and unreserved.  The bartender wondered what was so funny, but the only response he got was “Trust me.”  For some reason, he did.  He picked the least scratched glass he could find, pulled the drink, and pushed it towards the stranger before starting on a string of questions.

“You English?  What brings you up to these parts?  Tourist?  Hiking?”

The stranger smiled wryly.  “Close,” he said.  “I'm Welsh.  And I suppose you could say that.  Tourist and hiking.  I was passing through, and thought I would visit an old friend.”

The bartender nodded, but mentally scoffed.  _Old friend_.  The guy looked like he was about fifteen.  He began to wonder if he had done right to serve beer to the weird kid with the funny accent, but it seemed too late to card him now.  Anyway, however old the boy was, he looked like he’d been around enough to handle himself.  At least, his coat had.  The thing looked like it might actually be Victorian.

The stranger sat silently for a few minutes, nursing his drink and watching the door.  Soon enough, it creaked again, opening for old Cindy Harrell and her granddaughter.  Again, the patrons looked up, and this time there were a few warm greetings as the pair made their way to the furthest corner of the room, where they joined a couple of old men at the table nearest the woodstove.  The girl hopped up on a chair and one of the men ruffled her hair.  Greetings were exchanged, weather and the declining health of acquaintances discussed.

After a few minutes of chatter, one of the men started in on Cindy to sing something for them.  She refused, they pleaded, she relented.  The stranger watched intently as the old woman closed her eyes and licked her lips, leaning back in her chair.  She started to hum a few bars in her chest, feeling where the notes lay.  Her granddaughter was also watching intently, sitting bolt upright but cross-legged in her seat.  When the woman opened her mouth, her voice had the quavering hoarseness of age, but it was strong, melancholy, and a little bit harsh.

“ _Oh, Death—oh, Death.  Won’t you spare me over ‘til another year?_

 _Well I am Death, none can excel, I open the door to Heaven or Hell._ ”

The bartender watched the stranger watch the old woman, becoming more perplexed with every moment, until the stranger turned back to him and asked, “Do you still keep that blackberry wine?”

The bartender didn’t know about “still,” but he nodded.  “In the back, I think.  You want a glass?”

The visitor gestured to the corner.  “For the lady,” he said.  “And get something for the child, as well.”

_“Oh, Death, Death I pray, could you wait to call me another day?_

_The children prayed, the preacher preached—time and mercy is out of your reach.”_

The bartender had no idea how the little foreign kid could know the Harrell woman, but he went back to look for the wine.  It took him a few minutes, but he eventually came back with a dusty bottle, just in time to see another figure shouldering in through the door, chilling the room.  It was another stranger, big, with a weird bit of white hair.  The bartender paused in reaching for a corkscrew to watch as the second newcomer walked in.  Odd, he thought, to get so many folks from out of town so late in the season.

_“I’ll fix your feet till you can’t walk, I’ll lock your jaw till you can’t talk._

_I’ll close your eyes so you can’t see—this very hour come away with me.”_

The new arrival was at least six foot and built like a linebacker, dwarfing the first stranger.  He strode right up to the little one, purposefully, but a thin hand stopped him in his tracks.  The first stranger did not so much as look at the second; he was poised, tense, as he continued to watch the corner table.  The second watched the first, apparently just as confused as the bartender, who stood watching them all, blackberry wine in hand, wondering if he would be fast enough to break up a fight before the little guy got crushed.  At her corner table, the old woman was still singing, apparently oblivious, but her granddaughter was now looking at the newcomers, and fidgeting.

_“I’m Death, I come to take the soul, leave the body and leave it cold,_

_To draw up the flesh off of the frame, dirt and worm both have a claim.”_

The first stranger looked away long enough to rap on the bar and gesture impatiently towards the bottle of wine.  The bartender hurriedly poured a glass and brought it over to the corner table, where Cindy seemed to be finishing with a quiet refrain of “Oh, Death—oh, oh Death…” to murmurs or approval from her friends and had opened her eyes in time to see a glass of unsolicited liquor appear on the table.

“What’s this?” she asked, bemusement on her lined face.  She picked it up and sniffed it.  “Blackberry wine?  But I haven’t ordered this in—not since…”

“From the guy at the bar,” the bartender offered, gesturing.

Then Cindy was staring at the stranger, the stranger was staring back, the big guy was staring at both of them, and the bartender was looking at everyone, still confused.  The bartender noticed that the big guy—bless him—had backed away and was now leaning on the bar, trying, and failing, to look nonchalant.  They stood locked like this for what felt like an eternity, and then suddenly the one-hundred-and-whatever-year-old lady was grinning from ear to ear and swearing like a sailor.

“Ystin, you fucking _bastard_ , I thought I would never _see_ you again, get your _ass_ over here!” she half-yelled, and when the kid slid off his bar stool and started over toward her, the bartender realized that the little guy had been tense with nerves for some reason, and now they were gone, and he was striding across the room to fall to one knee and _kiss the woman’s hand_.

He stood up, and they embraced, and they were both laughing, the old men at the table were looking aghast, and the stranger was shouting like somebody in a medieval tavern, “Lucinda, if you thought I would forget you, then you’re as thick as these old fools.  _Barkeep, I thought I told you to get something for the child!_ ”

With that, he turned to the little girl and, with an exaggerated, sweeping bow, said, “A sincere apology, my lady.  Would you care for something to drink?”

The girl beamed at him from where she sat, all freckles and gap-toothed smile, and chirped, “Hot chocolate?”

The stranger—Istin?—turned back to the bartender, mischief in his eyes, and called, “You heard the lady!  Hot chocolate, at once!  And _you_!”  He rounded on the other newcomer.  “I don’t know who you are, but you can at least gawk where I can see you.  _Get over here_.”

The erratic combination of old-world chivalry and bawdy bravado was seriously weirding the bartender out, and, from the look on his face, it was just as much of a surprise to the second stranger, who was still lurking by the counter.  The bartender grasped at the only protest he could muster and stammered, “We don’t…hot chocolate…we don’t have…”

“Well, go get it!” the stranger barked, and there was something in his imperiousness that made him suddenly seem about two feet taller.  “And, before you do, fetch an ale for my friend, there,” he said, gesturing at the second stranger, who still looked stunned, “and _get him to come over here_.”

With that, he dragged two chairs over to the corner table and flopped down into one of them, sprawling there with _bite me_ clearly stamped across his boyish face.  The bartender found himself hurriedly pulling another ale and—for some _stupid_ reason—leaving the bar to trot off down the street and see about borrowing a cup of milk from the restaurant four doors down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is an Appalachian ballad dating to at least the 1600's called "Oh Death." You might know a version of it from Supernatural, where it was used to introduce Death, appropriately enough. Lucinda's version is more traditional and sounds something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk9T42Z9ftA


	4. Legends

Jason, meanwhile, found himself with a beer in his hand, sitting down at a battered wooden table with two old men, one old woman, an eight-year-old girl, and someone else, who looked like they weren’t that much older than the kid, but who Jason was starting to almost believe might actually be the person he was looking for.  So he sat, and waited, and sipped his beer.  It was decent.

“Now!” called the-one-who-might-be-some-kind-of-legend, rounding on his aggressively assembled drinking companions.  “Introductions!  As the lady said, my name is Ystin.  I haven’t been in these parts for many a year, however, and people have come and gone.  What do they call you?”  They—he?  Jason wasn’t sure; it was probably “he,” but maybe he should ask—looked imperiously at the pair of old men until they labeled themselves Peter and Bill.

“I’m Rabbit!” chirped the little girl when Ystin turned to her, making the old woman smile.

“That’s what she calls herself.  Her mother called her Dorothy, but…most folks can see Rabbit fits her better.”

“A pleasure, Lady Rabbit of Springer Notch,” Ystin said, with a slight bow and a crooked grin.  The girl giggled and buried her face in her hands.

He looked at Jason next, expectant.  Jason hesitated, thinking about how much better this had gone with the other knight.  Still, being told to sit down and have a drink was better than being chased by possessed Rottweilers, so he decided to play along.  “I’m, uh, Jason.”  This was no time for aliases.  Or was it?  He wasn’t sure anymore.

He expected Ystin to press him for a surname, maybe, or demand to know his intentions.  He didn’t expect him to frown, the casual ease vanishing from his face, and stare at him with unnerving intensity for what seemed like an age.  Jason’s heart started to beat faster as he watched Ystin’s eyes dart over his face searchingly.  Did he recognize him?  Jason wracked his memory for anyone in the superhero or criminal communities who might know the face of Robin II without his mask and cape, but he couldn’t think of anyone who did who would be likely to share that information with a medieval knight.  Had his death been bigger news than he’d thought?  Was he slipping, had he been traced?

Jason was still lost in paranoia when Ystin suddenly smiled, his face easy again, grabbed Jason by the hand and squeezed, pulling him closer, and clapped him hard on the shoulder, half handshake and half rough hug.  “Well met, ‘uh Jason’ of-following-me-into-town.”  Jason blanched.  He was slipping.  Ystin laughed.

“Ease up, lad.  I don’t bite.  At least,” he gave another crooked grin, and Jason was _fairly_ sure his teeth weren’t just a little bit pointier than average human teeth, “not anymore.”  With that, the bastard _winked_ at him.  The old woman jabbed him with the toe of her boot.

“Ystin, you dog, don’t _flirt_ with the boy.  He’s _far_ too young for you.  Anyway, there’s no need, he’s halfway to swooning anyway.  You’d better drink up, kid.”  Lucinda leaned in conspiratorially.  “If the Shining Knight’s set his eye on you, you’re in for quite a ride.”

At a loss for anything else to do, Jason drank.  He fumbled for something to say that might draw some attention away from himself.  “So, uh, how do you two know each other, exactly?”  It was lame.  It was so lame.  But it worked.

Ystin leaned back in his chair, glancing toward Lucinda with a significant smile.  “Well that’s quite a tale.”

Lucinda glared at him.  “Yes, and it’s mostly my tale, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell it anyway.”

The knight ignored her and fixed his eyes on Jason with an intensity bordering on melodrama.  “Would you believe me, boy, if I told you there were once dragons in these hills?”

The answer was yes, and Jason stuck out his chin with an air of _do you know who I am_ , ready to start rattling off a list of the strangest crooks he’d ever punched, but Lucinda cut in with “Of course he wouldn’t.  That’s what’s wrong with kids these days.  They think that just because somebody wrote it in a comic book it can’t possibly be true.  But you listen to me, boy.  There’re queer things in these mountains; stranger than they know about in whatever big city you come from.  And years ago, when I was just a girl—”

“You were a woman grown, I remember that plain,” interjected Ystin.

“I was seventeen, and innocent as a lamb,” Lucinda protested.  “Anyway, _I was saying_ , when I was a girl, when the men went to break some new ground, to expand the mine, they woke something, or so they said.  Something dark, something vicious—“

“It was a wyrm.”

“We didn’t know what it was.  But it killed three miners and disappeared into the woods, leaving only rumors and a stink like nothing you ever smelled.  Folks caught glimpses of it for weeks, huge and pale and unearthly quick.  It carried off livestock at night and made the cats howl and the dogs hide under the bed.  Men sent out hunting parties looking for it, they set traps; nothing worked.  It was too fast, too cunning.”

“I heard the rumors,” Ystin broke in again, “and I came looking for the beast, given I’ve got more experience in this sort of thing than any man living.  I found its tracks easy enough and followed it for a few hours, and, well…I found it.”

“ _I_ found it, you mean.”

Ystin started to laugh again, helplessly, barely able to speak, “She had dug a tiger pit.  And there it was, coiled at the bottom of this hole.  Wrapped around the remains of a goat and looking more confused than I had ever seen an animal look.  So I stand there, staring at it, it staring at me, when I hear something move and turn around in time to see this madwoman jump out of a tree and land behind me, mud on her knees, sticks in her hair, and a shotgun in her hand.  And she just shoves me out of the way and shoots twice into the hole.”

Lucinda smiled, looking smug.  “I caught the thing in one go.  The idiots before hadn’t realized it would only go for live bait, simple as that.  So, kid.  What do you think of dragons now?”

Jason bristled.  He’d been annoyed from the start, but now he was seething.  _I’ve fought bigger_ , he wanted to say.  _I’ve fought demons and mutants and madmen.  I am an urban legend.  I fucking died._   He bit his tongue.  The old woman was looking cocky, but Ystin was a bit more…appraising.

“I’m from Gotham,” he managed, finally.

Lucinda sighed.  “Ah, of course.  I should have known.  You see one clown with a machine gun, you’ve seen ‘em a—”

She cut off suddenly, and Jason noticed that Ystin was looking at her warningly.  Jason opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance.

“My dad went to Gotham,” said Rabbit, quietly.

Only then did Jason realize he’d been driving his fingernails hard into his palms.


	5. Two Ravens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHO'S SURPRISED TO SEE THIS UPDATED??? NO ONE MORE THAN ME!
> 
> I broke two big laws of good fic here: more song lyrics, AND there are foreign words. I'm so, so sorry. I can't help it. The song is this one (edited slightly for concision): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nWjTk8oZsw 
> 
> And the Scottish variant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fChqXqvvmg8
> 
> The song from the last chapter was distinctly Appalachian, these two are distinctly English and Scottish, even though there are many songs from the same tradition that have Appalachian variants. If you want a reason for Lucinda to know these, she went to college in the 60's.

"Yes, he...he did say that was where he was going." Lucinda's voice was quiet. The table fell into silence for a few moments, as the unlikely association busied itself with drinking and avoiding eye contact.

One of the old men--Bill, Jason thought he remembered--broke the silence. "I'm sure he'll be back soon?" he tried, with an air of forced cheeriness. Lucinda gave him a withering glance. He went back to his drink.

Ystin considered for a moment, then turned to Jason, looking impish again. "Perhaps our new friend has run into our lady's father on his travels. What was his name again, Lucinda?"

"Russell Adams," she said, with obvious distaste. "Rusty, for short."

"Well, have you come across such a man?"

Jason's mind flipped instinctively through a running tally of known Gotham contacts and criminals. The name wasn't familiar, but he also knew his mental roster was well out of date. Then he remembered these strangers had no reason to think he knew anyone at all beyond a dozen teenagers, a couple teachers, and the neighborhood butcher. "Don't think so," he said finally, bemused.

"Shame," said the knight. "Well, it didn't hurt to ask."

They sat in silence again, the two men looking awkward, Lucinda angry, Ystin inscrutable. The little girl started into space, apparently unaware of the tension she was causing.

It was broken by the bartender, bursting through the doorway with a Thermos in one hand, obviously out of breath. As soon as the patrons noticed him, he turned sheepish and tiptoed back to the bar as if he was trying to sneak into his own establishment.  It wasn't working, but he disappeared into the back room and came back with the hot chocolate, as ordered.

He served it in a beer stein. Rabbit looked delighted.

"Anything else for you folks tonight?" the bartender asked timidly, obviously steeling himself for another strange request.

"Another round on me, for anyone who wants it," said Ystin.

Bill and Peter exchanged a glance. "Perhaps we should be going," said Bill, in the loud whisper of someone who was going deaf and didn't really care.

Peter kicked him. "I'm not going nowhere until I know what's going on or am too drunk to care," he whispered back, also loudly. "And I'm not letting you walk home alone, not in this weather."

Ystin grinned and pushed their three glasses across the table, looking expectantly at Lucinda.

"Are you trying to take advantage of me? I've already had two drinks, and I'm sure they'll interact with my meds," she scolded.

Jason muttered a "no, thanks" and he could see the bartender look slightly relieved, evidently having come to the conclusion that Jason couldn't be of age, no matter how taller he was than any of the other patrons. The bartender took the empty glasses and shuffled off.

Ystin leaned back again. "How about another song, love?"

Lucinda smiled, downed the last of her liquour, and cleared her throat. "Though you'd never ask."

" _There were three rauens sat on a tree_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _They were sae black as they could be_  
 _With-a-doooown_

 _One rauen said to his mate_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _Where shall we our breakfast take?_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

Jason saw Bill nudge Peter and whisper again, "Row-ens?"

"Ravens, with a funny accent. Come on Pete, she's done this one before."

" _Down in yonder green field_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _There lies a knight slain 'neath his shield_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

The bartender returned with the refills, then left to attend the other tables, whose occupants had the air of people trying to look like they weren't eavesdropping. They ordered more drinks, obviously eavesdropping.

" _His hounds they lie down at his feet_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _So well they do their master keep_  
 _With-a-doooown_

 _His hawks they fly so eagerly_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _There's now fowl that dare come him nie_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

Only one person was sitting at the table nearest the door, scarf pulled up over their face and hat down low, as if they were terribly cold.

" _Down there comes a fallow doe_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _As fat with young as she may go_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

One might be cold, sitting in a drafty entryway, in November, in the mountains.

" _She lifted up his bloody head_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _And kissed the wounds that were so red_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

They did not order a drink.

" _She's got him up upon her back_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _And borne him to an earthen lake_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

Jason mentally kicked himself for not noticing the intruder earlier. He couldn't even be sure how long they'd been sitting there.

" _She's buried him before his prime_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _And was dead herself ere evensong time_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

Ystin was still sprawled in his chair, completely relaxed, listening to Lucinda sing. Jason fixed his eyes on a reflection in one of the glasses on the table.

" _God send every gentleman_  
 _Down a-down, hey down hey down_  
 _Such hawks, such hounds, and such a leman_  
 _With-a-doooown_ "

Jason twisted and rolled out of his seat, landing on all fours in time to see a blade stick into the table where he had just been. A sai. He recognized it. He'd hidden the bag containing his own exact duplicates in the bushes outside.

Jason had time to notice this, and nothing more, before Ystin, with a fierce ease that belied his slight frame with two drinks in it and his apparent inattention, sprang out of his chair, planted one hand on the floor, and swung both legs under in intruder, knocking them flat on their back.

Jason was on top of them a split second later, pinning them. He pulled down the scarf and recognized the face immediately, snarling up at him.

" _Karasu_ ," she spat. Crow.

" _Kasasagi_ ," he returned, in way of acknowledgement. Magpie. "You can spare me the explanations. I know why you're here," he continued, in Japanese. He knew his accent was bad, but he also knew she understood.

"Murderer!" she yelled, in English. Her accent was also bad, but he understood. Everyone else in the bar, also, presumably understood.

"Speak for yourself."

The struggle was fierce, but brief. Ystin's kick had given Jason the edge he needed. Within seconds, his assailant's other sai was out of her hand, in Jason's, and in her throat. He drove it down, then sideways, to kill her quickly. He didn't like the woman, but that didn't mean she needed to suffer.

Jason stood and looked around. Everyone was looking at him, of course. The patrons he hadn't been introduced to shot nervous glances back as they tripped over each other on the way to the door. The bartender dropped the glass he was cleaning when Jason met his eyes.

"Now we go?" Jason heard Bill say.

"Yes. Now we go. Yessir. Going. Immediately." Bill and Peter joined the rush to the door.

Only Ystin, Lucinda, and Rabbit didn't move. Lucinda had jumped up with surprising agility to stand between the fight and her granddaughter, who was clutching her cocoa stein, eyes wide. Crouching with one hand on the floor, unearthly still, Ystin watched.

Jason looked back at the bartender. "I'll be...going?" he offered. The bartender didn't respond.

"And I'll take her with me," Jason continued. The bartender nodded, and let out a long, shaky breath.

So Jason picked up the corpse. She seemed so delicate now, a foot shorter than him and light in his arms. A lie: Jason knew the Magpie had been deadly, easily his equal in a fair fight.

All the more reason to keep the fights unfair. He shouldered through the door and into the frosty night.


	6. Goodbyes

The bartender watched the second stranger take the third and leave as if he were in a dream. Through a haze he heard the first stranger sigh and say, ruefully, "Suppose I'd better go after him."

"Reckon so," said Cindy, sounding tired. She left her granddaughter's side and sat down heavily, leaning on the table.

"It was good to see you again."

"Likewise." They both smiled. The bartender looked at the rather large pool of blood on the floor and felt sick.

The stranger turned to Rabbit, fishing in his pocket. "I brought you something."

The bartender stiffened, expecting another weapon. What the man pulled out of his pocket was glittery and metallic, but too small to be a knife. Some kind of pendant, on a chain. A locket, maybe?

"Will you accept this knight's favor, Lady Rabbit of Springer Notch?"

The girl still looked stunned, but she nodded, and the stranger smiled, and settled the chain around her neck.

"Tis an ancient magic, on that scale. Keep it near you, and it will keep you safe." Rabbit nodded solemnly, and the stranger stood up and turned back to Cindy, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"That's a different version of the raven song than the last time I heard you sing it."

"Is it?" Cindy scoffed. "I could have done the Scottish version, but I suppose I've gone romantic in my old age."

"I've always found this one sadder. The lady dies, and no one gets dinner."

He sighed again, and pried the long dagger out of the table. Then he bent down and kissed Cindy on the forehead. She lifted an hand to his shoulder, and they stayed like that until the stranger said again, "I'd better go after him."

He bowed to Rabbit. He picked the other dagger off the floor. He paid in gold.

* * *

   
_Fuck_ , was all Jason thought as he kicked at some sandy dirt to make a shallow grave. _Really fucked that one up, didn't you, letting fucking ninjas tail you across three continents. Real good first impression you made there. Smooth as hell. Fuck._

"Fuck!" he said, out loud, as yet another person came up behind him, and again, he noticed too late to do anything other than dodge the blow that didn't come.

"Relax," said the knight, and handed him a shovel. "She deserves better."

"How do you know?"

"Why wouldn't she? Dig."

Jason dug. Ystin watched silently for several minutes.

"Could there be more coming?"

"Doubt it," said Jason, still digging.

More silence. More digging.

"How do you know?"

"She wasn't well-liked." _Hence I only know her by a code name._ "And she was arrogant. Wouldn't have thought she needed help bringing down the exchange student."

Ystin grunted.

It took hours to dig the grave, and Ystin stood silently through all of it, arms crossed. By the end Jason was sweating through under his jacket while his fingers felt like they were about to freeze off, but Ystin didn't seem to notice the cold, or the passage of time. When the hole was deep enough, he simply said "Good," and bent to grab the assassin's feet, motioning for Jason to take the other side. They laid her down together.

When Ystin knelt to cross her arms over her chest and close her eyes, Jason finally felt a unfamiliar pang of guilt. It grew as Ystin reached into his coat and pulled out the twin sai and laid them next to her. Standing, he said something to the open air in what Jason could only assume was very old Welsh, and turned to face Jason.

"Anything to say?"

"She was a murderer." Jason could feel the Ystin's disappointment. A justification was the last thing he wanted, and Jason knew it, but suddenly he couldn't help it.

"We trained together for a year under the same sensei. He was merciless. Our last test was to find a stranger and kill them. Kill them, without them feeling the blade, he said. She was the first to pass."

"And you? Did you kill a stranger without them feeling the blade?"

"Not...not a stranger, no."

Jason had no idea whether the knight approved, but he was fairly sure he understood. Either way, he was still looking at Jason expectantly.

Jason stared at the grave, very much not in the mood for prayers, or eulogies, or whatever the knight wanted. " _Gomen'nasai_ ," he growled, and turned to shoveling dirt back into the hole, suddenly angrier than he had been during the fight.

"Sun will be up soon, but I'm afraid you won't have time to sleep," said Ystin, as Jason kept shoveling. At leat it went faster, going back in.

"What?" Pausing, Jason looked up, worried. Ystin didn't seem like the type to turn him in to the county sheriff. Or to make him dig himself a place in a shared grave. But he didn't put anything past anyone anymore.

"You're coming with me, aren't you? I assumed that's what you wanted, though I also thought it was probably for an interview, at first. It isn't an interview, is it? Because you won't get that. Keep digging."

"Do I look like Lois Lane?" _Cut the sass, Todd._

"Not her, no. But a bit like her boyfriend."

Jason stopped again. "You know Clark Kent?"

"Oh, is that his name? Keep digging!"

 _Shit_ , thought Jason.

"So if you aren't a journalist, what are you? What do you want?"

"Training."

"Oh, how exciting! In what, pray tell? Dead languages? Calligraphy? Courtly dances? Perhaps the lyre?"

Jason growled and almost flung the next shovelful of dirt into the knight's face. _Stop mocking me sTOP MOCKING ME_ \-- "They say you're the world's greatest living swordsman," he managed.

For some reason, that got to him. The irritating twinkle left Ystin's eye, and his gaze was suddenly penetrating. " _Who_ says this."

Careful. Keep digging. "My...previous mentor." Don't look up.

"One of the dead ones?"

"...no."

"Hmph. Better if it was, but I suppose I'm glad they don't all die."

_You wouldn't say that if you knew._

Ystin thought for a moment. "Within a certain style, possibly. But I suppose the Lady Shiva was busy."

 _You know a lot of names, for how few people know yours._ Why did that seem suspicious? Ah, yes. It reminded Jason of _him_.

When Jason finished laying a soft mound of dirt over his former sparring partner, the knight turned around and started walking. "Come, then."

Jerking himself out of a daze, Jason jogged to keep up, thrusting his cold hands inside his jacket as he did. "So...you'll take me, then? As a student?" _Stupid question, stop testing your luck--_

"As a student? No. As a squire. I'll fill you in on your duties as we go."

"Why?" _What the FUCK that's a STUPIDER question--_

Yet it seemed to impress him, or at least surprise him. "You remind me of someone."

"The...reporter?"

"No. An old friend. He had the same hair. Same first name." Ystin paused. "You don't have any...friends in Hell, do you?"

Jason wasn't sure how to answer that. He didn't remember much about being dead, if that was what Ystin meant. He glanced back at the grave.

"I'll take that as a no. Not that there's anything wrong with having friends in Hell, but when they show up unexpectedly it can be trying."

"You're talking about...Jason Blood?"

"Do you know him too?" now, for some reason, Ystin was _beaming_. "I _knew_ you were interesting!"

Jason stumbled over a tree root. "Uh, quick question: where are we going?"

"Back to town."

"I thought so. Is that really a good idea?"

"We won't stay long. I need to collect some belongings, as I believe you do too. And there's the matter of my horse."

Right.  The  _horse_.


End file.
